A mother whose daughters were hit with pepper spray by a police officer at their school in Birmingham, Ala., joined the SPLC and a coalition of advocacy groups today to present the city council and Mayor William Bell with a petition signed by more...

"Artist and co-founder of CultureStrike, Favianna Rodriguez, created the “Migration is Beautiful” butterfly image. “The butterfly symbol was not my idea. Immigrant rights activists have seen the butterfly as a symbol of fluid and peaceful migration for generations. To me, the monarch butterfly represents the dignity and resilience of migrants, and the right that all living beings have to move freely. I believe that we shouldn’t allow our identity to be defined only by our suffering, nor by the actions that others have taken to devalue our families and our labor — rather, let us celebrate our beauty, pride, and resilience in the face of inequality and injustice.”

“The purpose of this program is for our officers to learn basic commands,” said Jackson Police Department Police Chief Lee Vance,.

“We’re not looking to make anybody fluent,” Vance added.

According to Fox News Latino, the two-hour Spanish class is designed for those who have no prior knowledge of the language and is mandatory for all officers.

A super helpful skill that will come in handy if an officer encounters a Spanish native speaker from anything to a traffic violation to more serious matters.

Latinos have been drawn to Mississippi the past few decades because of the state’s burgeoning chicken processing industry, according to Fox News Latino. Jackson, the state’s capital and its largest city, has a population of about 200,000 – roughly 2 percent of whom are Latino, according to the latest U.S. Census data.

For those of us who consider ourselves progressive, it’s not enough to, as Andrea Smith puts it in Conquest, “bemoan the genocide of Native peoples” while “implicitly [sanctioning] it by refusing to question the legitimacy of the settler nation responsible for this genocide.”

"The renowned scholar, author and activist Dr. Cornel West, joins us to discuss his latest book, "Black Prophetic Fire." West engages in conversation with the German scholar and thinker Christa Buschendorf about six revolutionary African-American leaders: Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Malcolm X and Ida B. Wells. Even as the United States is led by its first black president, West says he is fearful that we may be "witnessing the death of black prophetic fire in our time."

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Community Village Sites's insight:

My favorite role model here.

Dr. Cornel West.

He is the closest living person that I know of to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his passion for social justice and oratory eloquence.

Americans find themselves in a state of flux in 2015. Many people are dealing with the hard reality that those who are sworn to protect and serve, often do the exact opposite.

The topic of police behavior is at the forefront of discussions, worldwide. Market reactions to this interest in responsible application of authority as well as interest in the abuse of authority, are popping up online.

Trying to rely on the system, to report on itself, has proven to be a futile task. In instances of police killings alone, the official method for tallying these deaths was shown to be incredibly skewed and inaccurate.

The unaccountable nature of the state, coupled with today’s network of technologically savvy activists has paved the way for third party accountability sites that are proving to be quite helpful in the struggle for justice.

Up next in the world of answerable innovation is the site CopScore, aptly named for its interface which allows users to submit, “officer performance reviews.”

Anyone can register in a matter of seconds upon going to the site. However, in order to submit a review on an officer, you must know his or her name, department, and title. The form also requires that the registrant specify whether or not the officer arrested them.

If you actually want to post a performance review on CopScore, you will need to sign in and provide the officer’s badge number as well.

The site’s creator, Arion Hardison, explains that he, “put the badge number there because I did not want people posting fake reviews.”

“I wanted only people that had an actual interaction with the Cop to be able to vote,” said Hardison.

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/it-website-rate-review-police-officers/#1quceSAc3VhCq6De.99

Writer and filmmaker Gillian Schutte fearlessly and creatively tackles issues of race, identity, sexuality and social justice. She is founding member of Media for Justice and co-owner of handHeld Films and online reality TV show 'The Schutte Singiswas - A South African Love Story'.

Twitter: @GillianSchutte, Web: mediaforjustice.net

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Community Village Sites's insight:

Gillian Schutte (white) explains learning about racism through the eyes of her mixed race child.

During 1953–1964, more than 100 tribes were terminated, approximately 1,365,801 acres (5,527 km2) of trust land were removed from protected status, and 13,263 Native Americans lost tribal affiliation. -Effects

From the native standpoint, Northern Cheyenne former U.S. Senator from Colorado Ben Nighthorse Campbell said of assimilation and termination in a speech delivered in Montana:

“ If you can’t change them, absorb them until they simply disappear into the mainstream culture. ...In Washington’s infinite wisdom, it was decided that tribes should no longer be tribes, never mind that they had been tribes for thousands of years. ” —- Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Opening Keynote Address

Superheroes come in all shapes and sizes—but you’ve probably never seen one wearing a turban. Cartoonist Vishavjit Singh is out to change that with a unique twist on an iconic costume, and a bunch of Sikh-centric pop art.

Check out this short doc on what this superhero is all about—at 2:00 he explains his art over breakfast, at 7:03 he takes his message to the streets, and at 8:15 Captain America proves there’s room for all of us in this beautiful country.

In Captain America’s words: “It’s time to kick some intolerant [butt].”

On the 50th anniversary of the Moynihan Report (The Negro Family: The Case For National Action), john a. powell of the Haas Institute discusses the economic and political struggles faced by black communities today

Community Village Sites's insight:

Powell explains:

Segregation was [and is] about separating access to opportunity.

The War on Drugs is really a war on Black people.

We may have a plutocracy now. Rule by the rich.

White people don't see Black people as being part of the country, as being legitimate members.

We bailed out banks, and GM with billions of dollars, but we did not bail out Detroit to help the African-Americans who live there.

We previously reported on the death of 17-year old Jessica Hernandez. Jessica was killed on January 26, 2015 in Denver, Colorado. Authorities said Jessica was in a stolen vehicle and tried running over one of the officers, striking him on the leg, which led to that and another officer firing their guns.

A witness, 16-year old Trina Diaz, who was in the passenger’s seat during the incident, stated that the officers were standing next to the car when they fired, and that the car hit the officer only after Jessica was struck, which veered the car in his direction, pinning his leg between the car and a fence.

The coroner’s report shows that Jessica was shot twice to her left side; once to the chest where the bullet went through her heart and both lungs. The coroner determined that none of the shots were fired at close range. Jessica also had bruises and abrasions to her face, torso and neck.

“The stereotypes of people living in poverty throughout the United States are among the most negative prejudices that we have. And people basically view particularly homeless people as having no redeeming qualities” ~ Susan Fiske, Professor of Psychology. Princeton University

In the West, Africa is seen through a thick White lens that makes it hard to properly understand its past and present. It goes beyond mere Eurocentrism into outright racism. It affects how Blacks in the West see Africa.

Islamism (fl. 1979- ) is Islam seen as an -ism, a set of ideas suitable for a democratic, revolutionary or ruling party. Islamists think that Islam should inform government policy. (Before the 1990s, “Islamism” was mainly just Voltaire’s old word for what we now call “Islam”.)

Islamism is not a monolith. Some Islamists are extreme and violent, like Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Islamic State. Others are mainstream and democratic, like in Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey. Some push sharia (Muslim law), some do not. Some fight holy wars (jihadists). Some fight for the freedom of their people (nationalists). Some provide education and health care that the government does not.

Most older leaders of the Muslim world, like Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran, were secularists, not Islamists.

Secularism – keeping religion out of government – is a Western idea, one that grew out of Protestantism. It has been tried in the Muslim world and found wanting. Instead of bringing freedom and democracy, as advertised, it brought banana republicanism: police states led by men who turned their backs on God while they licked the boot of the US. Many people argued for a return to Islam, sometimes to a “pure” form of it: fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism arose in the 1900s in all the world’s main religions. It arose not among the poor or people “stuck in the past”, but among those with university educations. It is an understanding of religion that was rare before 1900, a reaction to secularism.

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Community Village Sites's insight:

Deconstructing identity labels is crucial to understanding who is labeling who and why.

In other words, take note of majority groups applying labels to other groups to demonize them.

These three words are Maya Angelou’s and they have inspired this morning’s post. I don’t know about you but I search for wisdom. And as is evident in her three words, it does not take many. I don’t need a long or grand speech, just a couple of thought-filled and authentic words can release me from longer words that have bound me hand and foot.

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Dr. Camara Jones shares four allegories on “race” and racism. She hopes that these "telling stories" empower you to do something different, and that you will remember them and pass them on.

Dr. Jones is a family physician and epidemiologist whose work focuses on the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of the nation. She seeks to broaden the national health debate to include not only universal access to high quality health care, but also attention to the social determinants of health (including poverty) and the social determinants of equity (including racism).

As a methodologist, she has developed new methods for comparing full distributions of data, rather than simply comparing means or proportions, in order to investigate population-level risk factors and propose population-level interventions.

As a social epidemiologist, her work on "race"-associated differences in health outcomes goes beyond documenting those differences to vigorously investigating the structural causes of the differences.

As a teacher, her allegories on "race" and racism illuminate topics that are otherwise difficult for many Americans to understand or discuss. She hopes through her work to initiate a national conversation on racism that will eventually lead to a National Campaign Against Racism.

Dr. Jones was an Assistant Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1994 to 2000, and a Medical Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2000 to 2013. She received her BA in Molecular Biology from Wellesley College, her MD from the Stanford University School of Medicine, and both her Master of Public Health and her PhD in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She also completed residency training in both General Preventive Medicine (Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health) and Family Practice (Residency Program in Social Medicine at Montefiore Hospital).

About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

JANUARY 19, 2015 — A group of about 40 Black activists from the #BlackLivesMatter movement attempted to give Oakland’s new mayor Libby Schaaf a wake-up call at her home in the city’s Upper Diamond neighborhood starting at 5:00 AM this morning. The protesters erected seven-foot tall signs spelling “DREAM” in LED lights in front of the mayor’s house, and chalked body outlines on the street. They also projected quotations by Martin Luther King Jr onto Schaaf’s garage door, set up altars along the street, and illuminated a banner reading, “If we can’t breathe, you can’t dream.”

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